Against all odds, college basketball is back and we should all take a moment to appreciate that improbable victory. You good? Cool. Now let’s nitpick UConn’s first two (extremely probable) victories of the new season.
The Huskies, fresh off a 14-day quarantine, started slow in Wednesday’s season opener before turning it on late and blowing out Central Connecticut State, 102-75. Friday’s bout with Hartford was slightly more climactic but ultimately more annoying than frightening, ending with a 69-57 UConn win.
With the lack of practice time over the last few weeks, and general bizarreness of this season, it’s hard to draw too many conclusions after two games, but let’s absolutely do it anyway.
Here are some takeaways in the exact order that they’ve entered my mind.
James Bouknight is wildly good. When the game is coming easy to him, he is completely unstoppable. At his best, he can get anywhere he wants on the floor. When the offense is getting good motion, he can show his next-level shotmaking ability. One of the most fun things about Bouknight is that he loves to rebound — and he’s good at it. He’s also grown more comfortable going to his left and finishing with his left hand over the offseason. In the first half against Hartford, Bouknight’s defender dipped under a high screen on a pick-and-roll. Bouknight responded by taking a small step back and burying a three. Watching a good player become a great player is so satisfying and it certainly seems like we’re about to get a season full of that with Bouknight.
Bouknight still has room for improvement. His shot selection was questionable at times in the first two games. When he was being moderately well defended, he settled for some bad threes — which is doubly problematic because Bouknight has yet to prove that he can consistently make threes. He also suffered from some of the general offensive weirdness. When the ball stopped moving, or when the point guard play was at its nadir, Bouknight didn’t demonstrate the level of iso ability you’d expect from a guy with his talent and scoring prowess. Certainly these aren’t things to actually worry about, but maybe just to keep an eye on as the competition becomes better.
Shot selection is a solvable problem. Bouknight wasn’t the only one settling for some bad shots. It’s not a surprise that the more out of sorts the passing and ball movement became on offense, the more ill-advised attempts got launched. Brendan Adams took a handful of questionable shots on Friday and the offense had an extremely difficult time getting Tyler Polley open looks, especially against Hartford when Polley did not attempt a three in 15 minutes of action.
The point guard play needs to be better. RJ Cole and Jalen Gaffney each had their ups and downs last week. Cole — who hadn’t played in a real basketball game in 20 months — got torched on defense for much of the first half against Central before settling into a decent rhythm on both ends of the court. Gaffney didn’t look great in either game but ended up scoring 15 points against Hartford and has only one turnover this season. We know Bouknight is the star of this team, but Cole and Gaffney have the big responsibility of keeping the ball moving on offense and setting the tone by playing tough on-ball defense and igniting transition opportunities. Two weird post-quarantine games are hardly a referendum but UConn struggled in both of those aspects last week.
Isaiah Whaley is good. I guess we knew this already after Whaley’s laudable performance down the stretch last year but through two games this season, Whaley is showing that it was his true talent level. Whaley is dependable enough when he’s on the block. He has a solid back-to-the-basket game on offense and is a good post defender. He’s the most fun though when he’s doing other things like doubling the ball-handler on high pick-and-rolls; or crashing the weak side glass for an offensive rebound; or correcting the bad defense of the guards by blocking shots. Whaley looks like a good college senior, which is so valuable and, given Whaley’s career arc, very rewarding.
Adama Sanogo is good. The beefy youngster sure looks like a college player already. Granted it remains to be seen if the abilities demonstrated against two small in-state opponents translate against the better teams in the nation but Sanogo was the strongest player on the court during every minute he played. He showed a nice touch around the basket, good rebounding instincts and didn’t look like your typical foul-happy freshman big. His footwork looked very good, and he was getting up and down the floor way better than you would expect from a large adult son. What impressed me most was his positioning — which usually takes a while for kids to figure out at the college level. Sanogo got wherever he wanted in the block and put himself in great position to receive a pass and get a good shot up. Presumably a warlock came to Dan Hurley in a vision and instructed him to bench Sanogo for most of the second half against Hartford. That’s the only explanation for the large youth not playing more.
Tyrese Martin is probably good. He missed the first game of the season due to one of those weird NCAA suspensions where they pretend to care about things. When he made his UConn debut against Hartford, he showed some impressive abilities to rebound, score in rhythm and handle the ball. Martin is more or less competing for minutes with the trio of Adams, Polley and Andre Jackson. After only 25 minutes on the court, he looks like the best player of the group.
Adams and Polley are limited but useful. This is where we double-down on the disclaimer that two games doesn’t tell you much, but neither Adams nor Polley looked much different than last year, which is fine but worth noting. There’s a big, gigantic opening for a third scoring option, especially one that can get a stagnant offense flowing, and Adams or Polley have a big opportunity to seize that role. If one of them can solidify themselves as that microwave scorer, or lights out three-point shooter, there are a lot of minutes available. But if they both run hot and cold, they’re probably bound to duke it out on a game-by-game basis. Both are useful guys to have, especially off the bench, but both have enough holes in their game to see their playing time diminish as the rotation gets established.
Josh Carlton has a tough hill to climb. It’s somewhat startling to see a three-year starter fall nearly to the bottom of the depth chart to start his senior year. Carlton played three minutes against Central and none (0) against Hartford. Early returns suggest Sanogo and Whaley are the superior players at this point but still, man, that’s rough. There are plenty of ways for Carlton to contribute this year, and he’ll certainly get some chances to do so, but he is starting from a tough place.
Andre Jackson is exciting, but raw. I had completely unrealistic expectations that Jackson would be more or less ready to start for this team right away. He, uh, is not. Jackson showcased some of his world-class athleticism in his first two games, demonstrated some ballhawking rebounding abilities, some strong on-ball defense and some fun shot-blocking. He also made some silly mistakes, committed some silly fouls and took one outrageously silly three-pointer. In other words, he looked like a skilled, but raw, freshman. Go figure. I’m still remarkably excited to see what Jackson can do this season and beyond but it’s reasonable to expect some growing pains over the next few months.
Holy shit, good players! A lot of the above is straight-up nitpicking because my biggest takeaway after 80 minutes of watching this team is that it looks like a roster full of talented college upperclassmen mixed with NBA prospects and hoo boy is that nice to see again. There are obviously kinks to be worked out on both ends of the floor but the talent level is so remarkably high compared to recent years. We’re past the point of wishing for middling recruits to shock the world and back to where we need to be, watching good prospects developing into good college players. It’s cool.
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Up next: Shrug. Vanderbilt has pulled out of the Mohegan Sun bubble due to a positive Covid test. Matt Norlander (my adorable son) is reporting that UConn will instead now play USC at Mohegan on Thursday. As always, who the hell knows? Plan to drop everything on a moment’s notice to watch basketball at some point.
